Well, it has been quite a while since I have purchased my SIG Citabria. About a month ago I looked up above me at my Cub that hasn't flown in years (close to 20 I would say) got it down, charged up the new batteries I had bought for the radio grabbed my flight box and went outside just to see if the engine I bought would run. I don't have a starter (the flight box and tools were my father-in-laws when he flew and the starter was stolen when the bro-in-law had the stuff on base) so I put the prop where I could do the backwards flip with the chicken stick and it fired on the first hit. I tinkered around with the engine for a bit and it got me excited again and remembering why I was building this to start with. I really didn't like the way the original wing looked when I put it together, so I saw that SIG sells the wing kit by itself so I bought a new kit, cleared off an area on my computer desk which was large enough to build, put the building board up and went to work. It's been a couple of weeks since I started it and I just started sheeting the wing, it is true and straight and just have some finishing touches in the sheeting and it will be finished. I bought a new to me Futaba 6EX 2.4 radio setup with all the servos which I will be putting in this plane, I still have my two Futaba 6NFKs, the one in my Cub, and the second I bought to put in this plane but I think I'm going to keep it free and get enough wood purchased to build a GP Super Decathlon 40 which I had years ago but lost it due to tip stall and going into an unrecoverable spin.

I got my SIG Citabria kit in today and all I can say is awesome. Everything is there, the person I bought it from had only started the fuselage and had bagged all of the die cut pieces up in seperate bags. I have almost finished with the fuselage and going to take my time on the wing since it's a 3 piece wing...left, right, and center sections. It looks like the balsa spars may be warped a tad so I need to figure out how to get them straight or just go buy new pieces for it.

Well, I won the kit today, hopefully it is all there and can finally get a plane put together.

Well, I'm to the point now where I'm going to just set this kit aside and get something else. It's not that I don't have the skill to do it, I just have gotten totally aggrivated with the kit (the wing actually came out pretty good) and before I get really upset to step away.

I really want to build a Citabira though, I love the look of the plane and how it flies so I put a bid on a NOS SIG Citabria kit and just build it. I love the way the SIG kits look and the build of them have always been enjoyable so we'll see what happens. If I don't win it, I guess I'll buy a new one from SIG.

The other option I have is my father-in-law (who got me into airplanes in 1988) has a .20 size Ace R/C bipe that is almost finished just needs sanding, wings sheeted (foam wings) and covered and it will be done. If I get it from him, he has a .26 Surpass that I'll get from him to put on it and take it with me to the field.


I got my other 48 Surpass last Thursday and been working on cleaning it up. The motor has really good compression and I'm going to pick up some fuel this weekend and put it on a test stand. From what Wake Turbulence (Charlie thanks again) said, it's been about 10 years since it's been run. It turns over nice and with a little addition of some Marvel Mystery Oil it feels good so we'll see what happens.

I also ordered some pushrods for my other .48 that is missing run after a lean mishap bent the rod in it and one of the pushrods ended up missing after a teardown...Continue Reading

Well, I am just not happy right now with my build. I cut out another set of ribs Saturday and I don't know what I am doing wrong, but I'm not happy with those either. I have 4 more pieces of 3/32 balsa that I'm going to cut out a 3rd set of ribs using a scroll saw this time instead of a band saw to see if I can make a set that will make me happy.